New Year is the time or day at which a new calendar year begins and the calendar's year count increments by one.
Many cultures celebrate the event in some manner and the 1st day of January is often marked as a national holiday.

Happy New Year’s Day

New
Year’s Day is a national holiday celebrated on January 1st, the first day of
the New Year, following both the Gregorian and the Julian calendar. This New
Years’ holiday is often marked by fireworks, parades, and reflection upon the
last year while looking ahead to the future’s possibilities. Many people
celebrate New Year’s in the company of loved ones, involving traditions meant
to bring luck and success in the upcoming year. Many Cultures celebrate this happy
day in their own unique way. Typically the customs and traditions of happy New
Years Day involve celebrating with champagne and a variety of different foods.
New Years marks a date of newly found happiness and a clean slate. For many
celebrating New Years, it is their opportunity to learn from the prior year and
make positive changes in their life.

New Year’s Day Holiday History

New
Year’s is one of the oldest holidays still celebrated, but the exact date and
nature of the festivities has changed over time. It originated thousands of
years ago in ancient Babylon, celebrated as an eleven day festival on the first
day of spring. During this time, many cultures used the sun and moon cycle to
decide the “first” day of the year. It wasn’t until Julius Caesar implemented
the Julian calendar that January 1st became the common day for the celebration.
The content of the festivities has varied as well. While early celebrations
were more paganistic in nature, celebrating Earth’s cycles, Christian tradition
celebrates the Feast of the Circumcision of Christ on New Year’s Day. Roman
Catholics also often celebrate Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, a feast
honoring Mary.

However, in the twentieth century, the holiday grew into its own
celebration and mostly separated from the common association with religion. It
has become a holiday associated with nationality, relationships, and
introspection rather than a religious celebration, although many people do
still follow older traditions.

New Years France
The French typically celebrate New Year’s with a feast and a champagne toast,
marking the first moments of New Year’s Day with kisses under the mistletoe,
which most other cultures associate with Christmas celebrations. The French
also consider the day’s weather as a forecast for the upcoming year’s harvest,
taking into account aspects like wind direction to predict the fruitfulness of
crops and fishing.

New Years
Phillipines
In the Philippines, celebrations are very loud, believing that the noise will
scare away evil beings. There is often a midnight feast featuring twelve
different round fruits to symbolize good luck for the twelve months of the
year. Other traditional foods include sticky rice and noodles, but not chicken
or fish because these animals are food foragers, which can be seen as bad luck
for the next year’s food supply.

New Years Soviet Union

The Soviet
Union’s New Year’s Day celebrations have been greatly affected by the Union’s
history. As religion was suppressed and Christmas celebrations were banned, New
Year’s, or Novi God celebrations often include Christmas traditions such as
decorated trees, which were reconsidered as New Year Fir Trees. As the
suppression left, these traditions stayed part of the New Year’s Day
celebration. The holiday is also celebrated with feasts, champagne, and wishes.

New Years
SpainSpaniards celebrate New Year’s Day with the custom of eating twelve grapes,
each eaten at a clock-stroke at midnight.

Cold-water plunges

In colder
countries close to water, such as Canada, parts of the United States, the
United Kingdom, and the Netherlands, it is customary to organize cold-water
plunges. These plunges and races, sometimes called a Polar Bear Plunge, often
raise money for charity or awareness for a cause.For thousands of
years, New Year’s has been a festival of rebirth and reflection, allowing
people all over the world to celebrate another great year.

New Year’s
Song

The song,
“Auld Lang Syne,” is sung at the stroke of midnight in almost every
English-speaking country in the world to bring in the new year. At least
partially written by Robert Burns in the 1700’s, it was first published in 1796
after Burns’ death. Early variations of the song were sung prior to 1700 and
inspired Burns to produce the modern rendition. An old Scottish tune, “Auld
Lang Syne” literally means “old long ago,” or simply, “the good old days.”

On November 1st of every year the people of both Santiago
Sacatepéquez, and Sumpango, Guatemala, put together giant kites to fly during
the Day of the Dead during the All Saints Day Kite Festival.

The vibrantly
colored designs on the kites, made of cloth and paper with bamboo frames,
depict religious or folkloric themes and they are flown in the nearby
Sacatepéquez cemetery to honor the dead. The locals in this small municipality
dress up in colorful clothing and head to the cemetery to spend the day
cleaning up the graves and decorating them with flowers while they have picnics
right next to their departed family members.

Traditionally,
the building of the kites takes 40 days, the first day marked by the village’s
unmarried men heading out to the coast at 4:00 am to laboriously collect bamboo
for the kite frames. Every part of the kite is made using nature’s bounty; the
glue is a mixture of yucca flower, lemon peel, and water, ropes are made of the
maguey plant (the plant that also brings us tequila), and the tails are made
from woven cloth.

The practice of flying colorful kites during the Day of the
Dead celebrations has been around for 3,000 years and is recognized by various
religious sects, and locals believe it is a tool for communicating with the
beyond.

Clancy's comment: What a great community project, eh? Kids would love it.